Aviation Partners plans to begin testing its patented spiroid wingtip technology this autumn on the company's Dassault Falcon 50 business jet with help from $2 million from Washington. The money has been added to another spending bill by Washington Senator Patty Murray.

This later paragraph looks wrong -

Although the project will be booked as part of the FAA's wake turbulence research programme, the agency says the work is focused on fuel efficiency and is not connected to current wake vortex research programmes. "It's a way to provide funds to Aviation Partners," a senior FAA official says.

What! Hope nobody in Europe spots this.

Seriously, what is going on? You can't book something to a specific field of research and at the same time say that it is not for that purpose.

In the USA's system they call it a congressional plus-up. A congressional leader sticks a line item into the budget for a very specific program identified by a particular line item account number in the agency's budget. That account number was reserved for the particular company's program (less a 10% or so handling charge reserved for the budgeting agency).

Other countries have other terms for it such as bribery, corruption, doing business, or government as usual.